Indoor Rowing Course - User Guide
Introduction to Indoor Rowing CourseHow to approach learning to row |
Flexibility and Core ExercisesFor Members:
For when the athletes cannot achieve the correct body positions we have extra videos with further information, click here: Downloadable pdf
Indoor Rowing Course Lessons:
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What are these Lessons?
These documents and videos are designed to help anyone improve their skills on a rowing machine. It doesn’t matter if you have never sat on an erg or have been rowing for the last 50 years. If you want to improve your technique, avoid injury and increase your rhythm and speed off or on the water then these essential lessons are the best place to start. Who can use this? Complete beginners to experienced. In many ways starting fresh with no preconceived notions and bad habits will get you rowing fast and comfortably more quickly than someone who has to unlearn bad habits. Where to start? There are 5 key ergo lessons. Take them one at a time. Practice, progress, revise, practice progress revise. Rowing is a beautiful, complex and extremely challenging activity. Take it one step at a time and the rewards will present themselves. How can these lessons be fitted into any time poor rowing program? We recommend carving out some time each session by getting the athletes to go for a run or ride. As little as 20-30 minutes is enough for the coaches to read the lesson, watch the video and understand what to focus on with the athletes when they return. Please print the document from each lesson page and take it with you to remind you of the key components. Going for a run will also help the athlete learn each lesson as they will not be as highly strung therefore allowing them to focus on the new skill. Rowing rewards quality first and fitness second especially with novice crews. Any rower who has not mastered the basic movements and technique will struggle to gain fitness on the ergo or in the boat. |
How to increase the number of coaches in your school or club?
Most schools and clubs don’t have sufficient coaches particularly for coaching beginners. Beginners rowing without a coach quickly develop bad habits that are hard to correct. We suggest one coach per group of 4 or 5 athletes, but we understand that this is often difficult to achieve. Hence, we have designed this Indoor Rowing Course and the associated On Water Rowing Course series specifically to help solve this problem. Most people without rowing coaching experience are quite capable of teaching one lesson at a time if they understand that lesson and focus on teaching only that in the session. Hence, we suggest that masters, senior athletes and, in particular, parents of athletes can teach beginners and intermediate rowers by following the process outlined in this series. We suggest that you arrange the athletes in groups with one “coach” that has watched and understood the particular lesson video and has a copy of the associated pdf document. This coach will be able to teach the athletes that particular ergo or rowing skill and then at the next session move to the next lesson in the series. How to teach athletes? When teaching athletes how to row it is important to only focus on a small number of items per session. Hence, we suggest do not allow yourself to be distracted by other issues that you may see unless they prevent the current lesson from being taught. It is also very important that the athletes execute each lesson as well as they are able. If an athlete is performing a movement or exercise incorrectly, please make sure that they are not left unsupervised and repeating the incorrect action. Otherwise they will be reinforcing a bad habit with potential long-term issues. |